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Starship Troopers (book) combat Armour : Possible today?


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Been flicking through the TV today, and through the entire day I saw several specials and documentaries, (mainly on the discovery wings, discovery science, Discovery and history channel) and flicking through some Popular Mechanics stuff.. that showed stuff that if mixed, with very little modifications, could make one of those combat suits from Starship Troopers novel.

1) Armour : -INTERNAL ARMOUR- Kevlar Jumpsuit (cover all body up until the neck, toes and wrists) Gives the first layer of protection to the soldier. Kevlar can stop up to a standard NATO rifle caliber bullet if fired from range (close up it penetrates). Some modern armours combine Kevlar and spider silk mesh to decrease the impact force the wearer receives. Lightweight and flexible enough to do sit ups with them. Temperature control provided by small "veins" of water just above the fabric layer that separates skin and kevlar.

External Armour: Titanium/Ceramics and Plastics. Titanium covering major body areas (head,chest area, arms up to the wrists, hips and femur area), ceramic and space age bullet resistant plastic combination used in the joints, feet (ceramic covering below knees) and hands.The plastic would be used in the helmet's eye- area.

The titanium armour's high strength and light weight is not there to make bullets "bounce" off, but just to provide 1st layer of protection, to reduce (drastically reduce) the kinetic punch of incoming bullets. It is also likely to provide full protection against pistol caliber rounds and rifle caliber rounds fired at it from 50yds away.

The helmet would have a slide-down LCD display that can give him a "screen" to access GPS, rifle optical systems and audio equipment (just like hearing aids, the helmet can enchance the soldier's hearing).

Avg weight so far: 8 to 12 kilos.

Armament: Short barreled rifle (CAR-15 or FAMAS) with optical link to helmet.Zoom capability on the helmet sight interface (digital zoom and optical zoom). Hand grenades. Whatever else they want to lug around.

Optionals:

Jetpack. Yes, believe it or not, jetpacks are VERY real. For the past 35 years you have seen them in promos and tv.. the guy with that weird backpack taking off up to a few hundred feet off the ground, circling around and landing back safely. That thing does not propel with rockets but rather with pressure gas (think like compressed air blowing from the back). Its got enough thrust to put its own 50 pnd weight (most of its weight is the fuel) and the pilot's weight and fly at 60mph @ 200ft for 1 minute. And this is with non-miniaturized components and using normal metals in its construction. Weight can be reduced to 25 pnds if they used lighter, stronger metals (titanium). Fuel capacity can be increased as well. Hitting the fuel with a bullet or spark wont make it explode since the gases are non-flammable.

And this is all possible with today's tech. The only drawback I see to this thing is the cost (relatively cheap when compared with all the crap the military spends on) and a slight loss in mobility due to the external armour (but not much, methinks you could still jump and roll in it).

Taking it a bit further, the armour can be boosted by using hydraulics to increase the soldier's strength and possibly speed. MIT nerds made a small exoskeleton part that was supposed to allow a person with physical disabilities to have a normal life by allowing them to walk or move their arms. Those who'se illnesses weakened the muscles to the point where they could barely lift their arms or legs... they made a small "cage" which "grabbed" the person's arm or leg, a small computer would read the movement applied and use the small hydraulic/electric engines to emulate the movement..but putting in their own contribution, boosting the movement by a set %. So a person that would not be able to lift his/her arm could in fact grab a jar of water and lift it with natural movement.

Now imagine something like that placed on the grunt's arms and legs. Ay mamma!.

I must be bored thinking of all this. Oh well

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Keep in mind all of the "action-reaction" controls in the powered armor suits that allowed the MI enhanced strength. Also consider that even if the armor prevents the bullet from reaching the user, the force of that bullet would most likely knock him/her off his/her feet.

I've thought about this a lot too. The problem isn't building the armor shell or optically linking the weapons (AH-64's use a system like this linked into the chaingun), and the armor suits are essentially in existence, full body flak armor. The real problem is the system for enhancing user strength. The motors (or hydraulics which are what I believe would be used) are difficult to control in an effective, compact, and lightweight manner. Remember, its not the skin that's so amazing but the skeletal - muscular system beneath it.

But some of what they've been showing on discovery lately is really cool!!

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Tac,

A very good topic. Alot of this stuff is already in the works. I know they were testing a Combat suit

at Ft. Benning a few years ago.I don't think they had worked their way up to the full Titanium armor yet......But I know it had a "Smart" rifle with an Integral camera hooked to a helmet that you could use to magnify your sight picture and even use to fire around corners and behind you without having to turn around.

When you take that "Starship Trooper/Traveller" Battle dress type Armor and combine it with the Cybernetic enhancement and direct neural interface from "Cyberpunk"(which I understand the Tech boys are hard at work on) Then you have a pretty formidable Grunt there. As computer CPU's continue to shrink to the molecular level the onboard computer capabilties of such a system could give the man on the ground unprecedented real-time threat analysis and tactical coordination. Not to mention high quality recordable Humint for the Intel guys at the theatre level of operations.

Meanwhile those,DAT's( Dumb Ass Tankers,for you non-Infantry type folk) have a working Tank Mounted RAILGUN !!!( Gauss Gun,Mass driver ) Capable of throwing a round at 3 times the velocity of chemically propelled rounds...now if they just solve that portable power source problem......or get longer extension cords...

Can't wait till they solve that Input/output differential and get a working Fusion reactor.

Speaking of Railguns....be cool to have a Spinal mounted Mass Driver on my CC......Uhhhh I better be quiet before SC swings his crosshairs this way

[ 01-29-2002, 22:55: Message edited by: Stormshadow ]

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If you look closely at Starship Troopers, which I have, it is my favorite book, read it at least 50 times, yeah, but like I said, I LIKE IT!!

The armor is a composite with built in hydraulics, with a full sensor array that is hooked up to the computer, which allows ANY movement to be sent to the suit and the suit does it, but at 6-10 times regular strength.

The suit in the book weighs at least 1000 pounds, you know this because our hero says that if the suit is unpowered, you are SOL, you cannot move, it is an "Iron Maiden".

The book tells me that most likely that the hydraulics etc are interior, not exterior, the exterior is HEAVILY armored, it can take the bunch of an RPG and NOT get holed, which also tells me that the force of impact is somehow spread across the suits surface, much like reactive armor on a tank. Otherwise the trooper inside would die fron the concussion, Which tells me that the trooper is somehow cushioned from the blow, most likey a balloon of water on the inside of the suit that also acts as it's coolant. Of course small arms would not even make the man inside flinch, but an RPG would hit hard enough to knock him down.

Now the suits also have your rocket pack you were discussing, but these were automatic, if you jumped a little, the suit itself would be enough to kick you over the obastacle, but if you jumped HARD, the suits jets would kick in to carry you high, and then cut in again to soften your landing. With a suit weighing this much, it would have to be a chemical rocket of some sort, and that Pack would have to be armored as well.

Also, the weapons, wrist lasers, grenade launchers, and missile launchers would have to be built into the suit, these would have to be armored as well.

Then we get to the helmet, radar, logistical computer, multichannel secure communications systems, full NBC (Nuclear, Biological, Chemical) capability, targeting systems, Infra red, HUD, and of course water and food and air filtration and refreshing, all built into a helmet, real possible, but you would have a helmet the size of an aquarium at this point, soon the circuitry will be small enough to make it reasonable. THen of course you are talking the cooling system built into the suit, waste disposal, and of course self repair capabilities while in the field, WITHOUT taking the suit off.

Oh, and the suit would have to be lead lined to protect against radiation, and be fully self contained. A big old aquarium with an attitude.

I believe a suit that had ALL of these capabilities is possible, but it would weigh far more then a ton, and would cost as much, if not more then a modern battle tank.

The wearer would have to be specially trained in the use of the suit of course, but again, this is ALL the weaponry a grunt would need. This soldier would be a specialist of the most incredible variety, no longer would you just need 2 feet, 2 hands, and a brain big enough to shoot a gun in the right direction to be a grunt.

These men would be SPECIALISTS in the extreme sense of the word.

I have always loved to think of how to build such a suit, and it is LOTS of fun to imagine what they would look like and what they would be capable of doing.

These suits would literally be armored tanks with legs, and armored spacecraft if necessary. Because they would be self contained, and AIR tight, with thier own circulation system and all that jazz.

They are possible, but they would be damn UGLY, not half as fast as the ones in Starship troopers, but they would be a heck of a lot of fun!! LOL

Thanks for the thread Tac, always wanted to talk about that!!

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Thank heavens, im not a freak

Or at least, im not alone anyway hehe.

Jaguar: yes, but the STrooper's suit was basically a human tank. The hydraulics you can do today can give u the same benefits as the MI troops in the novel without all the heavy armour. We can make one now thats to be used by disabled folks, just think on that!

Heavy powered armour is nice, but its not cheap and its too easy for it to leave a grunt "frozen" if it fails. We shouldve learned that lesson from medieval times anyway.

The kevlar internal and titanium external would be more than enough for a regular grunt wearing this to survive an impact (which is the whole point of the suit). That it would knock them down.. well, perhaps. But the boosted legs would also mean increased resistance and balance (unless u get hit with 1 foot up lol). And if you do get knocked.. roll over, stand up, fire back.

What I can see is today's regular grunts with this armour (boosted or not, the boosted would only allow them to run faster or carry more gear..at greater expense. Perhaps the Rangers or SEALS would get boosted units) being a serious threat to anything except cannon-armed foes (vehicles, tanks, fixed positions).

The jetpack would totally revolutionize mountain and urban fighting. You could have your soldiers "jump" with the jetpaks to the top of buildings or zip around at 60mph+ with their feet barely touching the ground. Talk about FLANKING capacity!. Amphibious invasions would mean carrying the grunts close to shore and having them fly over the water to the beaches.. at 60mph+ and delivering the attack. Or why not, with very minor modifications, you can make the suit be completely sealed and have them WALK through the ocean floor to target.

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quote:

Originally posted by Tac:

What I can see is today's regular grunts with this armour (boosted or not, the boosted would only allow them to run faster or carry more gear..at greater expense. Perhaps the Rangers or SEALS would get boosted units) being a serious threat to anything except cannon-armed foes (vehicles, tanks, fixed positions).


The only possible problem I can see is that the slower units would be an easier target for Cannon-armed foes(eg above) so while the suit would be good for infantry cut downs against harder armour/tanks they could actually be a hinderance. But I don't know Warhammer use dreadnoughts which are alot bigger than being discussed here but they are effective against infantry and hardened targets.

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Here's the problem I have with heavy personal combat armor -- it's obsolete.

How can I say that when we're talking stuff that can stop most bullets cold?

Look at history. Every time we've rendered one weapon useless, a new, more powerful weapon was created. I would much rather have my troops on a battlefield where they don't have such a massive conventional advantage that the enemy has to fight unconventionally (mass destruction weapons) to even stand a chance.

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a good ol' f-18 or its equivalents could just pass over at high speed anb drop a bomb, and BOOM no more soldier, no more armor.

The "infantry" concept itself is getting old, since a single armored/flying unit can take care of many, many soldiers. The only thing soldiers are good at is sneaking. What would have happened is the US would have sent thousands of soldiers to fight the Talibans instead of droppping an equivalent amount of bombs? More, much more deaths, and one ugly war we would probably still be fighting today.

[ 01-30-2002, 04:10: Message edited by: Epsilon 5 ]

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Yes aramike, but that is more pertinent to weapon systems like tanks and aircraft.

This armour is for all purposes, something that the grunt mucking in the dirt wears just to give him much better protection than the shirt-wearing SOB on the other side of the trench, aside from the communication and zoom/hearing improvements.

The "boost" is not really necessary except perhaps for spec ops troops, and the jetpacks would be cumbersome for someone in the ground (the Airborne..reborn!).

Other nations would be forced to either develop their own armours (expensive) or give their grunts .50 cal + firing rifles... again, quite expensive and innefective.

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quote:


Yes aramike, but that is more pertinent to weapon systems like tanks and aircraft.

Hardly. We already have tanks and aircraft, neither of which has the mobility of a GI.

quote:


This armour is for all purposes, something that the grunt mucking in the dirt wears just to give him much better protection than the shirt-wearing SOB on the other side of the trench, aside from the communication and zoom/hearing improvements.

Give him better protection and the weapons used against him simply get stronger, negating any protection.

Look at history. Everytime man has rendered a weapon obsolete a new one is created.

A modern Corps colonel that I know once said this: "A Marine's vulnerability is his greatest strength." What he meant was that, so long as a troop stood the chance of being eliminated by conventional means, the enemy would have no reason to assure its own destruction by using unconventional means.

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quote:

The "infantry" concept itself is getting old, since a single armored/flying unit can take care of many, many soldiers. The only thing soldiers are good at is sneaking. What would have happened is the US would have sent thousands of soldiers to fight the Talibans instead of droppping an equivalent amount of bombs? More, much more deaths, and one ugly war we would probably still be fighting today.


Whether or not infantry combat really sucks, especially when compared to the destructive capactiy of a single F-18 or tank, I think that a semi-quote from Starship Troopers is relavent: 'When they invent a bomb that can infiltrate an enemy base, take out all the bad guys, and save all the hostages, that's when their wont be an infantry' or something like that. That's the general idea anyway. There is no way to SAVE lives on the battlefield once those lives are on the battlefield without using human logical abilities, no bomb has IFF capabilities. So the infantry aren't going anywhere until the previously mentioned bomb is invented.

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  • 2 weeks later...
Guest Hellbinder[CE]

Battle Armor is nice.....

But I want a MECH. A really, really BIG one. With a Gause cannon, a coupple 50 cal mech guns... heck throw in a Pulse laser and some Jump Jets while your at it.

Why wear armor when you can Ride around in some really BIG armor...

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Guest Grayfox

quote:

Originally posted by epsilon5:

The "infantry" concept itself is getting old,

huh? what planet are you from? as long as there is war, or conflict there will ALWAYS be infantry. no matter how many high tech machines are made to kill them. there will always be the grunt. we are the backbone of any military. albeit now its more combined arms (and i was very thankful for that) there will always be ground pounders.

quote:

Originally posted by T_WOPR:

armor suits are essentially in existence, full body flak armor

flak suits dont stop s###... i was on the recieving end wearing one of the "technologically advanced" flak vests... ya... hurt like an SOB. until they get something like the ablative armor on the m1's shrunk down and lightened up (but with the same stopping power), there wont be much to do.

now ballistic vests that are out now can stop SOME small arms fire, there is always the people that wind up modifying the round used... take the black talon. that thing shreds body armor like its onion paper.

quote:

Originally posted by JJ:

you can bomb a piece of land as much as you want, until you send a poor bastard with a rifle to force the other guy out of his foxhole, you still don't own it

exactly... thats why there will ALWAYS be infantry. with the technology thats coming out now such as the OICW system and the Land Warrior, (which has actually been in development for about 8+ years)and the B2C2, the infantry soldier of today is better equipped to take care of high risk operations, and survive, then he was in saudi, or mog, or haiti, or bosnia.

quote:

Originally posted by Stormshadow:

Meanwhile those,DAT's

LMAO... i havent heard that saying in years... were you one storm??? if so bless you my child, those m1's (when we were with em) kept us nice an warm lol.

[ 02-13-2002, 10:48: Message edited by: Grayfox ]

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Now having all this aromour sounds pretty cool, but let me tell you one thing.

I've had some experiences on exercises where I'm just laying there prone besides a bush, crounched low in knee high grass so that I am just level with them. I had a whole section (that's 8 guys) walk about 10-15m right in front of me and not realize where I was despite the fact that I was firing away (blanks of course) at them.

Now this is all thanks to conver and concelament, then cam I put on and the diffusion pattern on my uniform.

Now I can tell you that I feel safer being able to hide like that than to have a section pop out of the wood and see a buch of tin cans laying in the ditch. [sure you could paint them, but your profile would no doubt be increased]. Sure, maybe it will stop some bullets, but it's not going to make you invincible, no mater what. If they see you are wearing heavy armour, their just going to bring in some heavier machine gun. I doubt that even a suit will help you against a .50 cal MG.

Think about all the problem that also go along with this. The thing has to be waterproof and light enough so that it doesn't fill up with water if you need to swim acrross a stream or a small river. It sure as heck better be reliable. I don't need my visor capping out on me and then not being able to effectively use my rifle.

These suits, and any technology that goes along with them are, don't get me wrong, are currently good for ideal situations. Throw them in the grit and see what happens. [you no longer scream for a medic, but tech support ! ]

While you have a buch of armour, you still need the same minimum supplies as before, hence you will be carrying more weight no matter what [artificial muscles, as said above, are still a long way away from being where they need to be]. more weight = less mobility = preventing me from running away faster .

I have to say, that we can have a good level of protection now with current vests [see here, but that even all of this equipment is not used all the time. And, as stated above, it's not always going to help you out anyways.]

Armour should the the LAST level of protection, not the first.

Why? Because of mobility and because of the varying degree of it's effectiveness. If it hinders the ability to get around, and it is not needed, or thought not to be needed, then they won't give it to you. A recce squad won't want to get dressed up in full battle armour because that would hinder them in their objective.

It all depends on the situation.

I don't want to say that increases in battle armour aren't welcome, but there are always tradeoffs that we need to take into account. I'm all for being behind a nice sheild, but it better not hinder the ability to fight and move when need be. Sometimes, there's a limit as to how high tech you can get.

Hopefully, this stuff will work someday. But what I hope for more than anything, is that we won't need it one day.

Cheers!

[ 02-13-2002, 12:30: Message edited by: Fractux ]

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quote:

quote:Originally posted by Stormshadow:

Meanwhile those,DAT's LMAO... i havent heard that saying in years... were you one storm??? if so bless you my child, those m1's (when we were with em) kept us nice an warm lol.

No 'Fox ,I wasn't a DAT.

I was 100% "True Blue", "Spirit of the Bayonet-KILL ,KILL , KILL", "Close with and destroy the enemy by means of fire and manuever" , "Can't have good sex without a grunt"," Ground-Pounder", "Death on two fu#*ing legs", 11 BANG BANG BABAY !!!!

Aco 4th/16th INF, 1st Inf DIV (FWD)

THE BIG RED ONE !!!

LOL....Damn that felt good

I had some friends that were DAT's though.....I don't know what ya mean anout keeping warm though,they wouldn't never let me in the damn things......said I'd get it DIRTY....lol...........Now if yer talkin' about standin' behind them and warmin' up in the exhaust..then I'm with ya...lol...I think the old M-60's put out more heat though

[ 02-13-2002, 12:52: Message edited by: Stormshadow ]

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Guest Grayfox

oh hell no. the m1's and the big ole jet turbine kept us toasty and our poncho liners (remember those?) dry.

as for me, i was a 12 boob human mine detector

Aco 326 EN BN 101st ABN DN the pukin eagle babay.

wasnt airborne though... 101 is all dope on a rope now... so i considered myself half a leg lol

i was the fool that would breach minefields with a grappling hook and 75' of rope and a fiberglass probe, because our unit didnt have MICLICs... damn light units playin with the bangers wasnt fun either...those things were heavy. although the rest of the demo was fun to play with

[ 02-13-2002, 13:06: Message edited by: Grayfox ]

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I was a 31V at Ft. Knox KY. Was there during my units changeover from m60A3 to M1A1 Abrhams tanks, talk about going from a VW to a cadilac, m60 would shake your teeth out, M1, you could go to sleep while it was hauling down the road. Me, I tried to get a ride with Tankers as much as I could, much quieter and a nicer ride then the M113 I was stuck into. A tin can with treads.

The M1's were wonderful, sit about 10 feet behind it on a freezing cold day and you were toasty warm, any closer and you were toasted. Great tanks, great guns, GREAT FUN!! Ahh, those were fun days, out on exercises at Ft. Irwin, the NTC, FUN,FUN, FUN!!!

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Guest Grayfox

31v... commo? or was that 31U. cant remember lol. commo guys rocked. hehe i was in knox for a year b4 i got hurt and got out. i was in Cco 19th EN BN (cbt). boy talk aboot a crappy unit. theyre deactivated now lol.

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Guest Grayfox

62e? what was that? supply? heavy junk? i cant remember lol. what years where you there? i was there from 95-96. i think they deactivated in 98 or something... small world indeed.

heh we did some training in ft. wainright, edmonton alberta. the canucks definitely knew their stuff. didnt see any women though... women werent aloud in combat arms then. we went into wainright city to he pub, and first thing Top told us was to NOT mess with the brits that were there lol.

we took his advice needless to say

[ 02-14-2002, 11:12: Message edited by: Grayfox ]

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Guest Hellbinder[CE]

does anyone know this????

I read a book in high school (circa 1987) called

ARMOR

Written by John Steakley (sp?)

Anyway it was about humans fighting ant like bugs on some distant planet. The story basically follows the career/life of a man named Felix who wears powered scout armor. He is like Rambo in a sense as what he calls "the engine" takes over just before he goes into combat. Its like putting your game face on, except way more intense or something. Anyway the guy becomes a one man recking crew. Its intersting because his first drop he has a suvival factor of like 9%. By the end of the book the guy is practically a legend and his final Drop he again has a survival factor of 9% becase no one has ever even approached 23 drops or some insane number like that. It is one of my favorite books of all time.

I have wondered about starship troopers that seems to be a total rip-off of the book ARMOR. The big difference being troopers has a 90210 feel and Psi core. The book armor is very hard core, serious and adult oriented. Not perverted, I mean really serious like a serious SCi Fi.

Does anyone know what im talking about?

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Guest Grayfox

hmmm never heard of it, but it does sound really interesting. ill have to look for it next time im at B&N.

does sound ALOT like starship troopers.

was it written before ST? cause if memory serves correct, ST was written by Robert Heinlein in the 1950's... 1959 if im not mistaken. it could be vice versa, and ARMOR was after ST and was a ripoff of it.

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Hellbinder, funny you should mention that book, I just read it again for the 3rd time I think, just packed it up. Too funny, pretty cool book actually, was fascinating.

and actually, Armor is a rip off of starship troopers, but a good book all the same. Heinlein is the father of that notion. He was a HUGE military buff and wrote starship troopers when he thought of the concept of infantry armor.

I was at Ft. Knox from 87-89, bravo troop, 1/10th cavalry, the Buffalo soldiers, 194th Armored brigade.

31V is a communications system maintainer/installer/repairer, great job, really enjoyed it!!

May have found the civilian equivalent, and that will be fun, if I get the job, competing with over 600 other applicants. WHEW, lots of unemployed out there these days.

[ 02-14-2002, 14:54: Message edited by: Jaguar ]

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Guest Grayfox

hehe woohoo i was right you were commo. we took good care of you guys. specially cause we didnt want our prc's breaking down in the fielfd

i kind of figured starship troopers came out before ARMOR. i mean 1959... cmon. look at tolkien when he wrote the Hobbit and the LOTR trilogy...

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